Last night I showed our children the photos I had taken of the grotesquely large Eastern Hercules Beetle I’d found lurking around our front porch:

There goes the neighborhood.

I was fully expecting them to congratulate me for my incredible, heroic feat of bravery. I had managed to get so close to the beast as to even slide a quarter right next to its body for scale.

Instead of congratulations, I was subjected to a Greek chorus of reproach and bitter recriminations.

“Why didn’t you catch it in a jar for us so that we could keep it as a pet?”

“YEAH! It would have been so awesome!”

“I can’t believe you didn’t catch it for us…”

Next time, kids…next time.